Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ryan kirkpatrick

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Statement of the dispute
''This is a summary written by users who are concerned by this user's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section.''

Desired outcome
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Ryan kirkpatrick to cease adding any incident which is not explicitly sourced as "terrorism".

Description
has been disruptive on List of terrorist incidents, 2010 and related articles, by persistently adding incidents which seemingly fit his own personal opinion of terrorism (which seems to be any bomb explosion) regardless of whether a reliable source describes it as a terrorist incident, or in some cases terrorism has been dismissed. Examples include a man allegedly attempting to kill his wife with a bomb in her car, a pipe-bomb exploding in a telephone box in New Zealand and an arson attack on a bus depot, amongst others. The editor seems immune to any messages left on their talk page, having made zero article talk page posts and one (correct at the time of posting) user talk page post. There are other issues with this editor including atrocious spelling and grammar, and the repeated creation of articles of questionable notability, but as I am not involved in that dispute I am sticking to the one I have attempted to solve.

His edits since he was notified of this request for comment demonstrate the precise nature of the problems with his editing, and his blanket refusal to discuss his edits or listen to what other editors are saying. He added an incident where a man in England shot and killed several other people (see 2010 Cumbria shootings), it was removed by another editor with an edit summary of "How on earth is that terrorism?". He added it again without discussion or an edit summary, it was removed by a second editor with an edit summary of "that is not a terroist incident". So it was added for a third time, again without discussion or an edit summary, or a source that describes it as terrorism. This editor appears to have an extremely bizarre view of what incidents constitute terrorism, and I believe action is needed to prevent Wikipedia being used as a vehicle to promote that view.

Evidence of disputed behavior
The "incident" links are direct links to the original sources cited, for convenience.
 * Adds incident about a car exploding in England. A man allegedly trying to kill his wife with a bomb in her car is not an act of terrorism.
 * Adds incident about some fans of a losing football team throwing a bomb into the locker room of the opposing team in Brazil. This is not an act of terrorism, unless a reliable source says so.
 * Adds incident about a bus driver's house being petrol-bombed in South Africa. This is not an act of terrorism, unless a reliable source says so.
 * Adds incident about a bomb exploding in a drive in England where the police say "We believe this was an isolated incident and there is nothing to suggest this was linked to any act of terrorism...The incident is being investigated as a criminal damage offence, recklessly endangering life. I would urge anyone with any information to get in touch with us to assist us with."
 * Adds incident about a pipe-bomb exploding in a telephone box in New Zealand. This is not an act of terrorism, unless a reliable source says so.
 * Adds incident about a man being injured by his own pipe-bomb in America. This is not an act of terrorism, unless a reliable source says so. Note also the source saying "Surry County, Va" yet the edit saying Surry County, North Carolina, surely a quick look at Surry County would have made it obvious?
 * Adds incident about an arson attack on a bus depot in Northern Ireland. This is not an act of terrorism, unless a reliable source says so.
 * Adds incident about a pipe-bomb attack on a mosque in Florida. This is not an act of terrorism, unless a reliable source says so.
 * Adds incident about a pipe-bomb exploding outside a bar in West Virginia. This is not an act of terrorism, unless a reliable source says so.
 * Adds back same incident (with a different source) where the police say "It would be imprudent for me to speculate at this point if the bombing was an act of terror" and "Ferguson called the blast an "isolated incident" and said it was unlikely that the explosion was related to terrorism. "We don't have much of that here."
 * Adds incident about a student attacking a school in America with homemade bombs and a sword. The incident occured on 24 August 2009, yet the edit claims it happened on 25 May 2010. This is not an act of terrorism, unless a reliable source says so.
 * Adds incident where a man in China unhappy at his divorce settlement killed three judges in a revenge attack. This is not an act of terrorism, unless a reliable source says so.

There are many others which are not sourced as "terrorism", I am only providing the most blatant examples. It is also highly likely the editor is also editing as an IP on the same article, but I am only providing logged in edits as they serve my purpose without needing to prove they are the same editor first.

Applicable policies and guidelines

 * WP:V
 * WP:NOR
 * WP:NPOV
 * WP:DE

Evidence of trying to resolve the dispute
(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)
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Evidence of failing to resolve the dispute

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Users certifying the basis for this dispute
{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}


 * O Fenian (talk) 21:42, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive' 23:31, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary

 * WikiuserNI (talk) 22:12, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Mo ainm ~Talk  20:13, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * ZacharyLassiter (talk) 08:37, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Response
''This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.'' ''

{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.}

Users who endorse this summary:

Outside view
''This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.''

Outside view by Gigs
It seems that Ryan is operating under a definition of terrorism that is out of step with most of the rest of the world. In cases like this I agree that it's prudent to only cite cases where third party sources have called an act terrorism. Wikipedia is a collaborative site, and edit warring and fringe POV pushing while ignoring discussion is unacceptable behavior for any user.

Users who endorse this summary:
 * 1) Gigs (talk) 21:15, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) ZacharyLassiter (talk) 08:37, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3)  Mo ainm  ~Talk  11:28, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) O Fenian (talk) 22:33, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) It should be made clear to Ryan that going forward, he should only label incidents as terrorism if reliable sources have also done so. --LK (talk) 03:44, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) I'm not sure if he actually understands this -- Rockstone  talk to me!   13:54, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive' 22:15, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Outside view by YSSYguy
It appears that Ryan kirkpatrick has a view that bombing = terrorism, or that violence in or near a public or government institution = terrorism. This is clearly not always the case, for example there is a long history of violence, intimidation and thuggery within the Trade Union movement in Australia. I don't expect Ryan to know this - but that is beside the point; the edits he made adding recent union-related violence in Sydney to the list of terrorism incidents were not labelled as terrorism in the sources.

I don't think he is POV-pushing per se, I have formed the opinion that the editor is actually a child and lacks the maturity to fully understand where he is going wrong and should be modulating his editing behaviour. My reasons for forming this opinion are the absolutely atrocious spelling and grammar contained in his edits; the way he has responded to this process (posting a response on RepublicanJacobite's talk page instead of here, and now posting incidents on his talk page instead of the list of terrorism incidents); his lack of response to any of the concerns raised on his talk page; and what I would characterise as his fascination with death, violence and destruction. This last point I raise because all of his edits are to do with terrorism, earthquakes or aircraft crashes; and in the aircraft crashes he has a penchant for saying things like "the aircraft bust [sic] into flames" when there is no evidence in sources to support this, or he sometimes greatly exaggerates the amount of damage to the aircraft (for example in one article he created - now deleted due to not being notable - he stated that an aircraft came to rest in the North Sea; this was simply untrue and the aircraft went on to fly for another twenty years). I am not experienced in processes like this and therefore don't know whether his being a child (if he is) has any bearing on the matter. Whether or not he is a child, I think that overall any benefits to WP his edits (including created articles) represent are outweighed by the poor quality of those edits.

Users who endorse this summary:
 * 1) YSSYguy (talk) 03:39, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) O Fenian (talk) 22:32, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3)  Mo ainm  ~Talk  21:24, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) As I said below, we shouldn't allow incompetent people on Wikipedia. -- Rockstone  talk to me!   13:53, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive' 22:16, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Outside view by E. Ripley
Well, this is a hard one. This person clearly wants to contribute meaningfully to the encyclopedia -- I doubt he is willfully misrepresenting things or being sloppy -- but in the final analysis, most of his edits are very low quality. That ends up creating a lot of work for other editors, which is a problem. The root issue, I think, is his lack of communication. If he could be engaged and helped to understand exactly what he's doing wrong, and why he should stop it, then that might help. Unfortunately he seemingly can't or won't address these issues, and so any attempt at showing him how to stop what he's doing and start being productive has been fairly useless, despite several patient messages on his talk page.

I'm not sure that a topic ban would really cut it, unless someone is prepared to follow him around and seek to ban him from every topic in which he edits. His edits are of such low quality that it's difficult to imagine that there's any article at which he could be useful, if he continues editing in this fashion. It's only an essay, but WP:CIR may contain some useful concepts here. Taken out to its logical extreme, this would mean an outright banning, which I'm not so sure about. His most persistent and damaging problem -- inserting things that very clearly aren't terrorism -- seems to be focused now on his user space, so maybe that's the ideal here. He can mess around in his user pages and feel satisfied, but not affect live pages. Hopefully he'll stay there, otherwise I'm afraid he may be headed toward an outright ban, unless someone can figure out how to get through to him.

Users who endorse this summary:
 * 1) &mdash; e. ripley\talk 12:59, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) O Fenian (talk) 22:32, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Excellent assessment.  Movementarian (Talk) 09:12, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) A minimum level of competence is needed to edit.  Fences  &amp;  Windows  17:55, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 5)  Mo ainm  ~Talk  21:23, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) Even in good faith, we can't have incompetent users on Wikipedia. I endorse this summary.-- Rockstone  talk to me!   13:51, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Reminder to use the talk page for discussion
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Summary
Clear consensus that Ryan kirkpatrick's editing is problematic. During this RfC/U, Ryan kirkpatrick was blocked for sockpuppetry. Discussion has moved to ANI proposing restrictions on the user's account. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:33, 2 July 2010 (UTC)